Citibank report sees huge potential for Bitcoin payments

According to media reports, Citibank has released a new research report, which asserts that Bitcoin and other digital currencies should not be seen as a disruptive threat to banks, credit card networks or traditional remittance providers, but as a supplement to existing services. The 56-page report believes that Bitcoin and other digital currencies...

According to media reports, Citibank has released a new research report, which asserts that Bitcoin and other digital currencies should not be seen as a disruptive threat to banks, credit card networks or traditional remittance providers, but as a supplement to existing services. The 56-page report believes that Bitcoin and other digital currencies can better open up new markets and allow banks to gain new consumers. The current centralized payment system is no longer sufficient to cope with today's business scale. It is worth noting that the report found that Bitcoin and other digital currencies can also affect emerging markets, where the payment systems are not yet developed.

“In countries without a good payment infrastructure, we believe that open decentralized networks like Bitcoin can find opportunities in these countries,” the report said. “In addition, we believe that open networks like Bitcoin, if combined with mobile, machine learning, big data and the Internet of Things, can create new business models.”

Citibank said that there is a "misunderstanding" about Bitcoin: Bitcoin provides a frictionless transaction system, while questioning whether Bitcoin payments can remain low-cost in the long run. The report said: "Given that the Bitcoin network generates a lot of energy costs due to proof of work, we believe that these costs will eventually be converted into high transaction fees borne by users, making the cost of Bitcoin more expensive than centralized networks .